Mum-in-law, car stolen

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A man has had his car stolen from a central Auckland petrol station ... along with his mother-in-law.

Just after 8pm on Thursday, the man was filling his petrol tank when a man jumped into the car and drove off, taking the mother-in-law with him.

Inspector Gavin Macdonald, of the police Northern Communications Centre, said the mother-in-law had since been found.

"We don't know at this stage if the guy's jumped in the car knowing she's in there or if he jumped in there and got a bit of a surprise."

Inspector Macdonald said the car had crashed 40 minutes later on Auckland's north shore.

"The offender's decamped from there and left the mother-in-law in the car," he said.

He said police were trying to piece together several incidents on the north shore about the same time to see if they were related - one in which somebody jumped on a bus and another incident in which a man kicked down the door to a house.

He said the mother-in-law was distressed and had been taken to hospital.